


Intrusive teachers

by wheezing_tardis



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: F/M, M/M, Teenlock
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-06-27
Updated: 2015-07-19
Packaged: 2018-02-06 11:37:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 6,150
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1856697
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wheezing_tardis/pseuds/wheezing_tardis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"John, you'll be in a group with Sherlock over there."<br/>"But he's an obnoxious arse!"<br/>"And you are a waste of valuable oxygen", came the answer from the other side of the room.<br/>Miss Hooper wasn't having any of this.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, so this is my first post in the Archive and I'm really nervous about it. I keep writing some random ficlets (till now only Johnlock, but I'm more and more working myself into some serious Stucky material) and don't know where to put them.  
> So I'm leaving this here *anxiety attack*. It's possible that I continue writing on them, since the plot is fairly out of nowhere, but I think I'll wait for feedback first. Hope you enjoy!

"John, you'll be in a group with Sherlock over there."  
"But he's an obnoxious arse!"  
"And you are a waste of valuable oxygen", came the answer from the other side of the room.  
Miss Hooper wasn't having any of this.  
"Either you cooperate and do your work nicely, TOGETHER, or you'll be assigned to class cleaning for the rest of the week. Enjoy scrubbing the desks every afternoon for five days. And guess what, that would be together as well."  
John sulked over to where the skinny dark-haired boy was sitting and flopped onto the chair next to him.  
"How do you manage being such an annoying git all the time? And how come I always end up having to work with you?"  
"Oh don't be so dim. I wonder how YOU manage to have a brain and not actually use it. Obviously Miss Hooper found a new hobby in match-making and chose us two for her first try. Possibly because we hate each other, but probably because her brother is gay and she wants to understand that kind of love."  
That stunned John into silence for a moment. What the hell? Where did that come from? He would never grow accustomed to the other boy's crazy view on things. And it annoyed the crap out of him, because most of the time his rantings proved to be right.  
"You don't know anything about love", John retorted, glancing at Sarah Sawyer on the far end of the classroom. He blushed a little when he noticed how prettily she'd done her hair today.  
"Oh don't I? I'd say that love is a chemical defect found on the losing side, and if I were you I would try harder to hide it. Because your body language is shouting all over the place."  
John closed his fist. And opened it again. It wouldn't do to start a fight in the classroom. Sherlock would always be the most annoying person on earth and there's nothing anyone could do about it.  
Better start the biology assignment. The faster he finished it, the faster he could get away from the lunatic at his side.  
John grabbed the microscope from where it was standing in front of Sherlock and dragged it to his part of the desk. He didn't even bother to acknowledge the look of disapproval on Sherlocks face. The task was to define the phases of mitosis in each of the onion cells. Easy peasy.   
John would be finished in less than five minutes (he had done this two years ago when his parents gave him the cell-staining science kit).  
"Nope. Not for you two", the teacher cut in, thumping a huge stack of files on the desk even before John could glance into the ocular.  
"What's this?" Sherlock asked with annoyed disinterest.  
"What do you mean, Miss Hooper?" John asked more politely.  
"Well, you two are my little biology-freaks so the onion cell task is much too easy for both of you. So I thought of something more practical and intriguing. What do you know about forensics?"  
"Isn't that like crime-solving stuff and something about murder?"  
"Yes, John! Bodies! Would you like to try and analyze the cause of death and criminalistic background of some of these cases? That's what I would call active biology!"  
"Miss Hooper, I seriously doubt that Scotland Yard would enjoy knowing that you rob them of their case files. Isn't that illegal?"  
The teacher blushed a little. Seriously, thought John, what kind of student could make teachers blush? That was just abnormal.   
"Not if I'm their master pathologist. Now come on, be some good boys and show me what you are able to do. I will grade your efforts, so try to have some useful insights." With that, she went away to fuss about with the rest of the class.  
"Master pathologist? Did you know that, John? And how does she expect us to have useful insights if we have never done something like this? I'm not doubting my capacities, of course not, but it's you I'm a little worried about. Are your grades currently good?"


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whee I wrote another chapter and I'm so happy that I received positive feedback from you guys and oh my god I hope you like it. *hyperactively jumping up and down*  
> Thankfully this one got to be a little bit longer and I still have ideas so there will be more :D

"Shut up! Did I tell you that you are really annoying? My grades are as good as yours and I'm not backing off on this one. Let's see if in the end you're the one fainting at the sight of a little dried blood." said John, not believing in the other boys preposterousness.  
Sherlock huffed indignantly and started digging through the file-stack that he'd taken hold of, leaving John to look at the photographs the other boy put down.  
This wasn't what John had imagined his biology teacher doing in her free time, but hey, anybody could have strange hobbies, right?  
"It's funny how in these photos human life is underrated." John said, looking at some more. "In the end, we're only a heap of flesh and dead eyes. I mean, literally at the end of our lives. Apart from that, we're only like a ghost driving a meat-coated skeleton made from stardust. Anyway, do you believe that we have a soul, Sherlock? Because that would make the separation fairly easy." John was kind of shock-talking, since he'd never seen so many photos of dead people before. "You could draw the line between what makes us people and that what is left of us when we cease to be. It looks really degrading! This cannot be what life is all about, can it? This is getting too philosophical, isn't it? But I don't want to end up being a heap of stuff! God, I'm babbling, and this isn't even making sense so stop me now before I -"  
Sherlock sighed and put his hand on John's mouth, which did effectively silence his rantings, but also felt fairly uncomfortable since the other boy's long-fingered grasp covered most of John's mouth and nose.  
"Biologically speaking, humans ARE just a heap of flesh and bone, Josh!"  
The blond boy was unable to protest against the wrong name since his mouth was still covered by the hand of an annoyed-looking Sherlock.  
Eventually he calmed down enough to continue looking at the photos Sherlock placed back on the table.  
After seeing a fair amount of waxen corpses whose cause of death went from irrationally stupid to eerily sophisticated, and trying not to gag at the sight of a dead blond girl not much older than he was, her skin a sickly yellowish white and covered in red speckles, John was trying not to think too much about how easy it was to die or eventually be killed by some creep.  
"Stop looking so horrified! I got an interesting one here and YOU said you weren't backing off." John hadn't noticed that Sherlock had stopped passing on the photographs of the case files and turned to look into the accusing eyes of the dark-haired boy.  
"What is it?" said John, glancing over to the photo in Sherlock's hand. He didn't notice what made the picture special at first, but suddenly he became aware of a slight oddness in the features of the man lying on the stretcher (well, as odd as it could be compared to the other depicted dead people).  
Meanwhile, Sherlock had been looking at the file attached to the photograph.  
"It's strange. Look at the report: it says that the body was found lying in a side-street in Chiswick by a homeless guy named Rivers. He contacted the police and the corpse was brought to the mortuary.  
The autopsy indicates that the victim was suffering from the flu and that's what probably killed him. His family members confirmed that the man, Tom Greenwich, had in fact been infected with the flu for about two days previous to his death, with symptoms, and I quote, like nausea, vomiting and lack of energy.  
Greenwich refused to go to hospital but promised his brother and sister-in-law that he'd call a doctor if his condition got worse.  
When he wasn't in his flat when the brother came to visit, they figured he'd gotten a taxi to the hospital.  
It was a shock when they got called by the police."  
Sherlock had said all of this with an incredible speed, almost without stopping to think about what he was saying and leaving John to try and keep up.  
"Is all of that written there?" asked John, open-mouthed.  
"No. Most of it is to be expected from the said relationships between the subjects." Sherlock answered, shrugging nonchalantly.  
"Seriously?! But what-"  
"Oh please Jeff, I don't need your useless exclamations right now! I know what you're gonna say. If you want me to piss off 'cause I'm a freak, I'll tell you that I won't this time, 'cause Miss Hooper assigned us BOTH to this task and I want-"  
"Shut up, Sherlock!" interrupted John, who needed to get some things off his chest. "Just so you know once and for all, my name is John. J-o-h-n. And right now I won't call you a freak or tell you to piss off. I just want to tell you that if all of this is true, your brain is fucking amazing!" he looked at the smarter boy, expecting a snob answer regarding ordinary life forms in general and stupid humans in particular.  
Instead, the file Sherlock was holding slipped from between his fingers and onto the floor. He rapidly ducked under the desk to retrieve it. John thought he saw him blush under his dark curls, but that must've been a trick of the light. How could John of all people have made the biggest nerd in class go red, when the guy himself had teachers blushing for him every time he wanted them to?  
The boys had been so focused on analyzing the case that they didn't until now notice that class was over and almost all of the students had already cleared out of the room.  
"C'mon, you both! Time's up! Seeing your faces, it think I should let you keep that file for a while. Even though I see it's a solved one. That one was pretty easy with the flu thing. I guess you read that in the report. Thank god it was so simple, because I remember that the mortuary was almost bursting at the time! Never a good sign when the criminal world is so active. Could mean the presence of some underground mastermind." Miss Hooper was chattering away happily, completely unfazed by the macabre things she was talking about.  
Sherlock was making tiny disapproving motions with his head and murmuring "Too easy. It's suspicious." for only John to hear.  
"So?" asked the teacher, probably wondering why they were still sitting there.  
"Yes!" said Sherlock. "We'd love to keep the file for further consultation." As the boys moved to pack their stuff together, Miss Hooper continued talking.  
"It really makes me happy that you're interested in this! I wish you good luck and hope that your explorations lead to something useful! Well of course not with the solved one, but ask me anytime if you want an unsolved case file! Oh, this feels like the beginning of an era! 'Till next Thursday boys!" After that, she turned around and disappeared through the door.  
"What the hell" John huffed after she was gone "I'm sure it's illegal for teachers to be so enthusiastic about something, right?"


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I seriously don't know where this is going but writing it and you people giving comments makes me happy. :D Even though my chapters are mini and I took so long to update this one (sorry)

Sherlock was unusually quiet on the way out of the school building. John, who still didn't understand the other boy's moods, decided to stay silent as well and get his own thoughts sorted.   
He hadn't even said goodbye to Sarah today. That was strange, because it was one of his little "conquests", the fact that at the end of class he always glanced over to look at that pretty red hair one more time and usually caught her looking at him. She would smile that tiny crooked smile and then turn to go with her friends.  
It had been a lot of effort to actually smile back in these moments instead of always just looking down, red to the ears.  
"Why are you grinning so stupidly? Don't tell me you're thinking about that Sawyer girl again! Don't let emotions rule your head, John! It's weak and ordinary! And WHY are you following me?" Sherlock asked from where John had forgotten the guy walked at his side.   
A blush spread across John's face and damn the boy for doing that to him.   
"I'm not following you, I'm walking to my house. You're not the centre of the universe, you know. I sincerely hope that we're not neighbors, cuz I really don't want to keep meeting your annoying face on the street", he answered harshly.   
John was thoroughly pissed by the other boy's arrogant attitude, but he regretted his words the moment he saw the change in the dark-haired boy's eyes.   
"Hey, I'm s-" John started to apologize instantly, shocked to see the sudden sadness on Sherlock's face.  
But the boy was already walking faster, making it hard for John to keep up with that long-legged stride of his.  
"Just shut up." Did that voice just break?  
Oh God, what did I do? John thought and started running after Sherlock. "I didn't mean-" he called, trying to catch up with the other boy.  
"Leave me alone, you're just like all the others." he heard Sherlock say, turning to enter the grounds of one of these posh houses with perfect lawns and miniature Greek statues, yanking open the shiny wooden black door at the end of the driveway and slamming it shut again behind him.  
"And it seems like you aren't" John muttered, glancing at the tiny fountain splashing near the front porch, and feeling horribly out of place.  
He turned to go, shaking his head at the scene they had made. John was often put off by Sherlock's preposterousness and strange manner, but what he'd said earlier had been really mean. He shook his head again, just because he could and because he was too confused to care if anybody was watching him.

***

"Sherlock?" his mother called, having heard the door being slammed shut and feet stomping furiously down the hallway.  
"'M going to my room!" he called back, not wanting to inflict his anger on her but barely containing it.  
"Everything's ready for supper, dear!", she continued, ignoring the noise of a school bag being tossed violently into a corner.  
"Don't want to eat now mama! Please leave me alone. People abhor me!" he shouted, running up the stairs to his room and slamming that door shut as well.  
He threw himself onto his bed, using all of his willpower not to punch something.  
"Violence is for dumb people." he kept repeating like a mantra inside his head. He successfully managed not to damage any of the furniture, but there was nothing he could do against the angry tears welling up in his eyes.  
"What is it, dear?" a tender voice asked, followed by a soft pressure on his bed where his mother had just sat down. Sherlock hadn't noticed her getting into the room, but was glad for her presence all the same. Suddenly what had happened with John earlier didn't seem such a big deal anymore.  
"I told you" he answered "people abhor me."  
"You can't say that" his mother admonished "I am also people and do I abhor you?"  
"Sometimes." Sherlock grumbled into his pillow. She laughed at that. "Yes, but then you can't say that you hate everyone. There's always an exception. Who was it today?"  
"John Watson!" Sherlock near-shouted, sitting up in his bed. "I mean, he wasn't the exception, he was the dumbest horrible arsehole ever! I hate him! I never want to talk to him again!"   
"Take care of your language young man! You can tell me what happened if you stop using those rude words."  
"Mrs Hooper assigned us both to a forensics project." Sherlock started, without saying how exactly he got put together with John, because there was no way he was going to tell his mum about his teacher's crazy pairing ideas concerning him and and the other boy. "She gave us some old cases from Scotland Yard to kind of analyze. It was really interesting, and one of them looked so odd that I really want to continue with it. But I need a partner and John was supposed to be useful! But he's ordinary and irritating and incompetent!" Sherlock's anger flared up again, and in that moment Mycroft came into the room. "That boy who walked you home today looked really out of his depth when you left him standing there to run into the hous- oh pardon me mother, I didn't know that you were with him."  
She tsked at her older son, but her eyes were laughing "I told you to stop looking at the security camera feeds all the time, Myc! Everybody has the right to some priva-"  
"He DIDN'T walk me home!" Sherlock shouted, interrupting his mum, understanding what his brother's words implied.  
"Certainly looked like it." Mycroft scoffed whilst walking out of the room again.  
"I hate my life." Sherlock said, glaring at the burn marks on the floor that came from an experiment he had done some years ago involving robotic beetles and fire.  
"There, there." his mother said, sliding a stray curl behind his ear.  
"You'll have to cut your hair soon, you're starting to look like a curly version of Snow White."   
"Mum!" Sherlock said indignantly, throwing his pillow at her and missing because she was already out of the door. "Come eat supper when you feel better."


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 4th chapter, woohoo!  
> Sorry for the delay, I took my time writing this, and then finals happened and well...  
> Hope you like it anyway.
> 
> P.S.: And thanks to my amazing beta a_fan4all_seasons.

Sherlock spent the next day at school purposefully ignoring John. He was still angry at the other boy. It would've been more dramatic if John had actually tried to talk to him, so that Sherlock could've used his best expression of disdain on him. Even though he expected some kind of apology from the always amenable John, it turned out that the other boy planned nothing of the kind. Every time Sherlock glanced at John sitting at the back of the classroom, waiting for the disgruntled/guilty/sad glance in his direction, the other boy was looking critically at a sheet of paper on his desk, or writing furiously on it, completely ignoring everything around him and not paying attention to either English class or Geography after that. Eventually, in Maths class, Mr. Ferber, a teacher with an undoubted aura of authority who always expected the unshared attention of his students when he was in the room, walked up to John's desk and ripped that paper out of Johns hands. "Let's see what is keeping our dear Watson, who I believed to be a good student, of joining us both physically _and_ mentally in my class." he said, looking at John's scribblings. All eyes were on John now, who had jumped out of his chair and extended his hand to have the paper back, a silent plea unmistakable in his eyes. Mr. Ferbers eyes, in turn, had widened upon reading the words on the paper, curiosity sparkling in his complexion as he looked up. "I guess you can finish working on that in the break, young man. This is hardly the time and place. I want you to pay attention to my class now, even though I wish that you succeed with this task." Mr. Ferber's tone had changed completely as he lay the sheet of paper (face down, Sherlock noted) into John's expectant hand. "Yes, sir." John grumbled, closing his fist and crumpling the paper in his hands, only to sit down and smooth it down again on his desk. The class had lost interest in the scene when John had gotten his paper back, except for Sherlock, who was still observing John with his head slightly turned, and Sarah Sawyer, staring openly at the blond boy with a concerned crease between her eyes. John, oblivious to being observed, continued scribbling away on the paper Sherlock was itching to read at this point. When the bell rang, announcing the midday break, Sarah went over to where John was seated, put a hand on his shoulder and started talking softly to him. Sherlock strained his ears to hear. "Is everything alright, John?" "Y-yeah", he answered, startled, hastily opening his maths book and covering that goddamned paper with it. Sherlock would explode with curiosity at some point. He knew it. Only his plan to ignore John all day was keeping him of stalking over to John's desk, ripping that paper out of his hands and running away laughing maniacally. Or just running away and reading the paper. Without the laughing part. He went into the break before his staying became noticed, and walked in direction of the cleaning personnel's room. Nobody questioned his using their room as access to the staircase to the rooftops since he had gotten Ciara, the one with the colored tattoos, off an accusation of burglary. (The guy who had actually done it had been an annoying junior who used to make fun of Sherlock with his pack of like-minded friends. Sherlock and Ciara both had been very satisfied to know that he had gotten kicked out of the school.) The boy sat on his usual spot overseeing the whole school yard, concealed from the eyes of the students down below by the big chimneys at his side. Sherlock went there when he wanted to be alone, which was basically always. He had brought that case file that interested him so much and started looking it over again. He almost knew it by heart by now. But his thoughts drifted off to another direction. A direction called John Watson. Sherlock didn't know why he _expected_ an apology from John. The scene from yesterday didn't seem as big a deal anymore. What even happened, anyway? John had said mean things to Sherlock and Sherlock had run away in fury like the drama queen he was. It's not like he couldn't deal with some rude words concerning his person. He got them all the time. It's just that after that biology class, John had seemed so nice and caring and- "What the hell is wrong with me?" Sherlock muttered quietly. Letting a person rule his head after, what, an _hour_ of nice time together. He was going to change that. Sherlock wasn't going to let some puny John Watson cloud his mind with his confusing bipolar being-nice-and-then-mean way. The bell rang for the last two classes of the day. Arts and music. It was so _boring._ Sherlock had gotten the hang of drawing perspectives and dimensions in third grade. He didn't get why the other students made such a fuss about it. How can you draw an object totally wrong if it's lying right in front of you? Seriously, the people around him had pitiful observational skills. The only thing that stressed him were when they had to do something "expressionistic". How did you create a thing without any patterns or something to build on? Modern art annoyed him. Whereas in Music class, Mrs. Colin just needed to hear Sherlock play his violin once in a while, let herself be reduced to tears and give him A+ for the rest of the year. Easy. That's why, in said class, Sherlock took out his university-level calculus book and started drawing asymptotes on the desk. He wasn't paying attention to anything else and the time passed quickly, like always when he's doing something useful rather than wasting time with teachers. On his way home, Sherlock was thinking about the case again. The victim, Tom Greenwich, had been a respectable businessman with no records of criminal activity, no known conflicts either in his personal or professional life and no reason whatsoever to turn up murdered in some alleyway. Yes, murdered. Just because Greenwich had apparently been infected with the flu some days prior to his death, it didn't cancel out the possibility of some genius mastermind crafting a perfect alibi around a perfectly ordinary assassination. Sherlock's suspicions had started the moment that Miss Hooper said that the case was solved "easily". Easy could mean horribly tedious or extremely fascinating, and Sherlock was taking his chances and hoping that it would turn out to be in the last option. Arriving at home, he went to greet his mother in the kitchen and unpacked his lunch bag (to the great surprise of his mother, who usually had to force him first). When the bag was empty, he noticed a somehow familiar-looking crumpled piece of paper at the bottom of it. It couldn't possibly be... Could it? His mother was saying something about guests coming over for dinner, people from the school and some kind of parents reunion. Sherlock couldn't care less, since the paper he was holding in his hands was the one John had spent his day scribbling things on, which in turn had almost driven Sherlock mad with curiosity. Sherlock told his mum that he was happy about people coming over but that he wanted to go into his room now. Ignoring her surprised stare (Sherlock was never happy about "ordinary and boring people invading his personal space", like he put it), he ran upstairs. Questions filled his head: How did the paper end up in his bag? How didn't Sherlock notice someone meddling with his stuff? Was it John? Or someone else? Clearing his desk from his last experiment with the spiders, Sherlock sat down to analyze the letter as he would do it with an interesting arachnid.

He wasn't expecting what he saw:

~~Dear Sherlock~~

~~Hello Sherlock~~

Sherlock,

~~I'm sorry   I shouldn't have called you a~~

I didn't mean to  ~~hurt~~ offend you when I said those things. It kinda just  ~~  
~~

I don't know what to say, because I don't know what you want me to say and I basically don't understand you.

We  ~~were enemies~~ had some conflicts in the past, but somehow I want to change that.

I would really like to  ~~help~~   ~~assist you~~ be part of that case Miss Hooper assigned us on.

You don't have to always do everything alone.

Please say yes. 

          -JW

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so I wanted to make a kind of image for John's note, because it had to be crumpled paper and handwriting etc. I even managed to do that, but then failed because I have no idea how to insert images in AO3. Seriously. I googled it, and it has something to do with "skins" and WHAT. So if someone finds the time to explain that to me in the comments, I would be really thankful because I hate the boring layout in which I had to write the note. And keep comments of any kind coming! I love them :D


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finally! Another chapter! I should feel bad for posting so irregularly, but well... This one's longer I think! Enjoy.

John was surprisingly satisfied with himself. He wrote that goddamned apology letter. (It was a very cliché thing to do, but with Sherlock extreme measures were necessary. He really liked teaming up with him in biology and didn't want to lose that.) He managed to stuff it into Sherlock's lunch bag without him noticing. (Still not sure how he accomplished THAT, but at that time in music class the dark-haired boy seemed to be concentrating on a really hard maths problem, for whichever reason.) AND he didn't get a detention from Mr. Ferber, even though that seemed a sure thing when the teacher ripped the letter out of John's hands. (Maybe he wants Sherlock to have friends. Again, no reason for that found.) Now, John had the time to focus on other things. Sarah Sawyer for example. To his dismay, he hadn't really acknowledged her today, too preoccupied with writing that letter in a Sherlock-friendly and comprehensible way. Which means, crossing out a lot of stuff he would RATHER have said. Thinking about it, Sherlock would probably read the crossed-out lines too. Whatever. More importantly, Sarah TALKED to him and even TOUCHED HIS SHOULDER! And what did he do? He almost didn't turn to speak to her! Goddamnit John! At least he went out to the break with her. But it didn't really make any difference, because he was thinking about how he could sneak the letter into Sherlocks bag without the other boy noticing, all the while ignoring Sarah's friendly chatter. Had it been friendly chatter? She could've been shouting at him and calling him names and he probably wouldn't have noticed, being too immersed in the problem: how to outsmart the smart Mr. Smartypants Sherlock Holmes. That sounded wrong. Anyway. Sarah's friends called her over and there went John's chance.  
Seriously, he should just suck it up and ask her to go on a date with him.  
But not today. Maybe tomorrow. If he felt courageous enough tomorrow.  
School was out now, and John was on his way home. Past Sherlock's house. It wasn't really the most direct way home, but the creepy part of John wanted to see/hear/know that Sherlock had read his letter and accepted his apologies.  
He walked past the mansion (it clearly was a mansion, even though Sherlock didn't seem like the kind of person that would be stuck up because of money. He just was stuck up by nature) and thought that he saw a black mop of hair through the window on the left. But it wasn't like he was going to march up to the door and knock. So he just ducked around the next corner, now actually heading home. 

Sherlock couldn't process what he was seeing at first. Why would John bother? Why was he doing that? He had never received an apology letter before. He usually just got insults and afterwards was told to sod off or something similar.  
John had seemed nice enough in their short time together, even though a little slow. But Sherlock was used to that with everyone surrounding him. And John was certainly not one of the really dumb ones.  
What should he answer? How did that even work? Did you answer apology letters? It was a letter after all... Sherlock was (to his dismay) completely out of his depth. He could ask Mycroft for adv- no, of course he wouldn't. Sherlock didn't need his older brother meddling with his life any more than he already did.  
He would think of something. Something cool. He wanted to do the answering right. And he wasn't mad at John anymore. He did, after all, make the rest of the day less boring for Sherlock.

The next day at school, John was doing his best at not being nervous. He convinced himself that slipping the note into sherlocks bag had been the best thing to do. There was nothing to worry about. He kept involuntarily looking for the mop of black hair, but Sherlock was nowhere to be seen. What he saw was Sarah and some friends at the end of the corridor, standing, he saw, next to his locker. John braced himself. He would ask her out. Now or never. John smiled at her as he approached the group, and greeted everybody. He didn't really know every one of them, but figured it was the right thing to do. "Hey S-" he started to say, when she interrupted him and asked "We want to go watch Jurassic World tomorrow, do you want to come? Yesterday you said you knew Jurassic Park so I figured..." She trailed off, while John kicked himself mentally for not paying attention to her talking to him yesterday. At the same time, he was performing a complicated happy dance choreography in his head. Sarah had asked him out! Well, not really, they were going as a group, but still! "Yeah. I'd love that!" He answered while opening his locker to hide his smile and fight the urge to giggle happily.  
"Nice!" She pecked him on the cheek and turned to go, her best friend trailing behind her. John didn't want to giggle anymore. He wanted to stick his head in his locker and screech. She KISSED him! Wow!  
If the teachers were weirded out by the huge grin plastered on his face, they didn't show it.

When it was time for the first break, John remembered his apology letter and wondered where Sherlock was. He hadn't had classes with him today, and didn't see him in the corridors. Had he come to school? Or had John's letter put him off so much that he fled the country? Ok, that was an exaggeration. But where was he?  
He went out to the school yard, found Mark Stamford and was talking to him about the last football game when something hit his head. He looked down and saw a stone, with a string wrapped around it, and a folded piece of paper. He looked up to the school building but saw nothing more than the old chimneys. "Huh." he picked up the paper and unfolded it. It read "Second break, rooftop. Access through cleaning personnel rooms. Could be dangerous." And in tinier letters "Not really. Unless you have the sense of equilibrium of a turnip. -SH" John was stunned. Not because of the letter or the strange method of delivery. But because Sherlock Holmes had just been sassy. In English, John's gaze couldn't stay away from the clock ticking over the chalkboard. He wanted it to be second break already. He couldn't wait to see what Sherlock would say to him, for one, but he also had never been on the school roof before, and that sounded really exciting. Leave it to Sherlock to gain access to the coolest places in their boring school.  
Finally, the bell rang. John got up and made his way to the cleaning personnel's room. He was thinking about an acceptable excuse to get in there and up to the rooftop, but didn't need to after all, since the room was empty.  
He found the staircase easily enough, stepped through the fire-escape-like door and was standing on the school roof, overlooking he school grounds.  
He saw his mates playing football on the field, saw the students milling around on the schoolyard and wondered why he himself had never thought of such a cool place to spend time on.  
A cough made him remember why he was here. Sherlock sat against one of the chimneys, looking expectantly at John, the folder with the information on their case in his hand.  
"Hey" John greeted him.  
"So..." Sherlock said, "I got your note."  
"Yeah." John huffed.  
"I'm curious, when did you put it in my bag? It must've been either in arts or music, right?" John laughed at the other boy's inquisitiveness. Of course it'd bug him that something escaped his notice.  
"Music. You were concentrating on something with graphs."  
"Yes, well, music bores me to death. I'd start shooting the walls if I didn't have something to distract me. The teacher doesn't even know what a syncopated rhythm is!" Sherlock answered. John smiled at the rant and went to sit next to him, leaning with his back on the chimney as well. "This place is nice. How did you get here the first time?" John asked, genuinely curious.  
"I helped one of the cleaning ladies with an accusation of theft. I knew she didn't do it, and the senior who did was always sending his thugs after me, so I didn't have a problem with ratting him out. I saw the stairs and asked if I could come up here sometimes. They always let me."  
John thought about that. It was the first time that Sherlock had talked to him without being snobby.  
"Do you come up here often?" he asked.  
Sherlock looked at him. "Yes. What would I want with the people down there?" Well, scratch the part about not being a snob. But it also made John sad to hear that the other boy was such a loner. He'd known that, but now it bothered him.  
"Anyway, how is the case going? What's so special about that one specifically anyway?" John asked, to change the subject.  
"I think it was murder, John." Sherlock stated.  
"Say whaat?" John blurted, sounding like a 13-year old girl. He cleared his throat and tried again "I mean, what makes you think that?"  
Sherlock was looking amused at his outburst. "Well, first of all, Miss Hooper had said that the case was "easy". That doesn't sound right to me. Why would some perfectly respectable man turn up dead in some alley if there wasn't something bigger behind it? Second, he died in August. But he had had the flu before dying. Who gets the flu in August, John? Statistically speaking, perfectly healthy people don't get the flu in the middle of August. Or die from it afterwards, for that matter. So yes, I think it was murder."  
John blinked. "Wow."  
Sherlock looked at him. "Wow what?"  
"Wow your brain! How did you even! Seriously man, why are you not in university already? For all I know, you could be doing rocket science or consulting the Queen or something. Just, wow"  
Sherlock was wearing a weird expression. "That's not what people normally say.", he said.  
"What do people normally say?" John asked.  
"Piss off." Sherlock answered.

And that was the moment when John knew he wouldn't let that genius of a boy sit around alone on rooftops anymore.  
If it was worth something, there would now be two sitting on that roof.


End file.
